Madhya Pradesh’s Narsinghpur district is successfully implementing de-addiction campaigns and ensuring fast resolution of complaints registered on CM helpline, and for this, it has come in the top 20 best performing districts in the country. In an exclusive conversation with Indian Masterminds, Mr. Rohit Singh, District Magistrate, Narsinghpur, talked about how the district was able to achieve this recognition.
THE HONOUR
Narsinghpur is among the 20 best performing districts of the country in the prevention of drug and substance abuse among children. It’s been selected by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and Narcotics Control Bureau among the best performing 20 districts out of 272 districts of the country on the basis of indications of joint action plan on prevention of drug and drug abuse among children. For doing excellent work in this direction, Collector Rohit Singh will be honored with a citation in a programme organised at Vigyan Bhawan in Delhi on March 2.
DM Rohit Singh said, “I congratulate our officials for efficient enforcement of the plan that brought us the honor of being in the top 20 districts.”
STEPS TOWARDS DE-ADDICTION
Mr. Singh further said, “In our district, around 34-35 villages were severely affected by drug addiction. The district is on the routes of Nagpur, Jabalpur and Sagar, which makes the smuggling of charas, smack, kachchi sharab easier here. We started working on an effective regulatory framework of the Excise Department, Police Department, Health Department and created task forces for it.”
Through the integrated participation of people and administration, various constructive activities like Village Chaupals, Nukkad Natak, Awareness Camps, Fire Camps and sports like kabaddi, kho-kho, taekwondo, and counseling sessions were conducted.
Mr. Singh said, “When someone is alone or facing any kind of mental issue, he leans towards the support of drug addiction without even realizing its ill effects. All these things happen on a mental and physical level. By conducting various activities, our motto was to make them fit and active, and be vocal about issues that they are facing. For this purpose, we emphasized community support. As it was said by Mahatma Gandhi – dosh papi ka nahi, paap ka hota hai, our aim is not to punish the people, instead, we want to eradicate the root causes of the whole problem.”
MASS AWARENESS PROGRAMMES
The administration also engaged school children and volunteers to make one and a half kilometers of rangoli, with the message, Say No To Drugs. Another effective tool is presenting real-life models of those people, who once were in the grip of addiction, but have coped well after leaving it and went on to accomplish good in social and economic field. Canvas paintings, engaging motivational trainers, formation of Advisory Committee, Jagran Clubs, task forces, etc., are also part of the initiative.
SEND THE PIC CAMPAIGN
Explaining another impactful campaign, Mr. Singh said, “To know more about the problems of people, we started a campaign named ‘Send the Pic’. Where any citizen can send us pics on finding any kind of malfunctioning around them so that we can solve the issues much faster than in the regular course of action. We are striving towards the best and trying to solve a complaint by the proper follow-up process.”
The campaign is bringing lots of positive changes and building trust among people towards administration. It played a significant role in the de-addiction campaign and, also, in the resolution of complaints on in CM helpline which brought the district rank 4 among districts after 4 years.
RANK 4 AMONG DISTRICTS
The officer explained how the district managed to get rank 4. “Around 6 to 7 months ago, we were on 46th rank in monthly ranking of districts. By constant efforts, around 5.5k complaints were solved this time. In which around 1200 to 1300 complaints were solved through just Send the Pic Campaign. Our focus is on the satisfactory closure of the complaints and building trust among people. They should feel that their problems were addressed on time and public servants are actually working for them.”
He also mentioned the Jansunwai programme, where a complainant can directly come to the administration and immediate help can be provided to him. “A person came to us seeking compensation for losing his hands and feet during work in an accident. His complaint was immediately addressed by giving him a cheque of Rs. 13.5 lakhs on the spot.”
The administration has also initiated a programme on superannuation on the10th of every month, where retired people are invited and felicitated as a thanksgiving gesture for the service they rendered.
